


bloodstains and bruises

by silverstorms



Category: Six of Crows - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Angst, Ellen isn't allowed to read this, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, MY BABY CHILDREN, there are lots of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 11:00:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7168352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverstorms/pseuds/silverstorms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Wylan and Jesper are attacked and it's all very angsty, but there's also cuddling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bloodstains and bruises

**Author's Note:**

> I come to the Six of Crow tag like every day praying for more Wesper fics but THERE ARE NEVER ENOUGH, so I wrote one. Enjoy!

It was startling, Jesper thought, how unchanged everything was.

He didn’t know why he’d expected things to be different after the Ice Court-- he wasn’t sure he  _ had  _ expected it, really, except unconsciously-- but still, the unchanged streets of Ketterdam took him by surprise every time he set out into him. They were as dark and damp and grimy as ever, seemingly unaware that their Wraith was missing and their monster was ready to burn it all to the ground just to get her back.

He should have been comforted by the familiarity, but he wasn’t. It was unsettling. He was different, and everything else was exactly the same as it had been.

“Jesper?”

Well, not  _ exactly  _ the same.

Jesper came to a stop and squinted up at the building his companion was gesturing at.

“This is it?” he said.

The boy standing a few feet from him shrugged. Even in the midst of running an errand for Matthias, searching for medicine to ease Nina’s splitting headaches, it was hard not to stare at Wylan van Eck. Though traces of Nina’s magic remained-- a darker shade to his red-gold hair, a golden glint to his eyes-- he was still very much Wylan. Still curly-haired and bright-eyed. Still innocent.

Jesper considered the building for a minute, then banged on the wooden door. It didn’t look much like an apothecary, but sometimes it was hard to tell with Ketterdam buildings, particularly in the poorer districts. 

Wylan leaned against the brickwork and ran his fingers through his messy curls, which Jesper would have considered a deliberate move had it come from anyone but him. As it was, he knew that it was nothing more than a nervous gesture, something Wylan did when he was thinking too hard, which was almost disappointing. Wylan could be surprisingly bold at times, and the way that boldness contrasted with his usual demeanor made his flirtations twice as interesting as anyone else’s. 

But of course, he wasn’t flirting with Jesper. Not now. Not anymore.

“Spit it out, merchling,” he said.

Wylan grimaced at the nickname, but seemed otherwise unbothered by Jesper’s rudeness. Maybe he was just used to it. Still, Jesper felt a twinge of remorse. Wylan didn’t deserve to be subject to Jesper’s moodiness. None of Jesper’s issues were his fault-- or anyone’s fault, really. He had only himself to blame.

Wylan scuffed the toe of his shoe against the cobblestones, spreading a smear of dirt, and said “I’m not the one who’s been acting strange.” He looked up at Jesper, and it was easy to see the worry in his  blue-gold eyes. Part of Jesper-- the stupidly bitter part-- wanted to tell him that he wearing his emotions so openly would never get him anywhere. But the softer, even stupider part of him wanted to say the opposite.  _ Stay this way. Don’t change. Don’t let them change you.  _

Instead, he said “How have I been acting strange?” and banged on the door again, harder this time. 

“You’re just… quiet.”

“Maybe I just don’t have anything to say to you.”

Wylan snorted. “You always have something to say. I don’t have anything to do with it.”

Jesper regarded the still-unanswered door with a glare. This whole conversation was making him feel trapped, and being trapped made him want to kick things. The door was looking like a pretty good target. 

Actually, being trapped made him want to gamble, but he wouldn’t give into that urge, not after where it had gotten him-- and not after where it had gotten Inej.  _ I won’t _ , he repeated to himself furiously, over and over again.  _ I won’t. I won’t.  _

Before he could take his frustration out on the unsuspecting door, however, it creaked open, revealing a woman with too-pale skin and dark, greasy hair.

“Finally,” said Jesper, in lieu of a greeting. He held out the piece of paper covered by Matthias’s absurdly neat handwriting. The woman took it from him, glared at it for a moment, and then retreated into the house and slammed the door behind her. 

“Friendly,” said Wylan.

“Not everyone has time for pleasantries.” Jesper looked over at Wylan just in time to catch his exasperated expression.

“This is what I’m talking about,” he said. His hand was tangled in his hair again, fingers knotting through his curls, and it was so easy for Jesper to imagine himself doing the exact same thing that the breath caught in his throat. “The whole unfriendly, brooding thing. It really doesn’t work for you.”

Jesper tore his eyes away from Wylan. It was something he’d been doing more and more since they’d returned from the Ice Court-- looking away, stepping back instead of stepping forward. It was strange and completely unlike him, and moreover, it was absurd. He’d flirted with Wylan dozens of times during their trip, teased him and prodded him just for the flash of enjoyment that came from watching him blush. But now…

Now Wylan knew exactly how idiotic and awful Jesper could be. Now, when Wylan looked at Jesper, he wouldn’t see the carefree boy who flirted with him and was good in a fight. Instead, he’d see Jesper exactly as he was : a terrible gambler and an equally terrible friend. And though Wylan had yet to turn away from him, the shame still felt like a vice around Jesper’s throat.

The door creaked open again, and this time the woman emerged with a pouch in one hand. Jesper accepted the small package of medicine, handed over the money-- an absurd amount, but it was Matthias’s cash, not his-- and turned away from the woman without a word.

“Thank you,” said Wylan. Jesper heard his footsteps as he hurried to catch up, but was still startled by the light touch of Wylan’s hand on his arm.

“What?” he said, coming to an abrupt stop.

Wylan made a frustrated sound. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?” 

Wylan’s fingers curled into Jesper’s sleeve, and his grip only tightened when Jesper tried to pull away. 

“Stop running away,” he said. His voice was steady, calm, but there was a hint of pleading in his eyes that made Jesper want to run his fingertip across Wylan’s cheekbone and wipe all of his worry away. Wylan pressed on. “Jesper. I’m not-- I’m not Kaz.”

Jesper snorted. The moment flickered and disappeared. “You don’t need to tell me that. Kaz belongs here. You don’t.” 

Defeated, Wylan dropped his arm and turned away, shoulders slumping. Jesper half-closed his eyes for just a moment and then opened them again, turning towards Wylan, knowing that he had to say something, anything, to rid him of that weariness.

He turned just in time to see a man emerge from the shadows with a knife in his hand.

Jesper moved without thinking. The pistol was in his hand, the shot fired, before Wylan even knew the attacker was there. Wylan stumbled backwards, a shocked sound catching in his throat, as the man screamed and collapsed to the ground.

It was here that Jesper made his mistake.

He should have turned, should have kept his gun up, should have scanned the area for other threats. Instead, he moved forward and gripped Wylan’s shoulder, wanting to erase the fearful, wild-eyed expression from his face.

“Wylan,” he said, his voice low. Wylan lifted his head and opened his mouth to say something, and the second attacker struck.

The man’s blow caught Jesper on the back of his head, sending him sprawling onto the slippery paving stones. He was dimly aware of his pistol being tugged out of his hands and tried to tighten his grip, but the world was spinning too fast and too bright for him to focus. Blood trickled down his forehead and into his mouth as a second blow hit him, this one from the pistol itself. He closed his eyes and sank into the ground. 

Then he heard a shout and a single thought tore through him:  _ Wylan.  _ Desperately, he forced his eyes to open and dragged himself upright, trying to fight down the sickening lurch of his stomach. The scene before him slowly swam into focus: the second attacker, a lean, redheaded man, was slashing at Wylan with his knife, his movements fast and vicious. Wylan seemed to have retrieved the fallen attacker’s knife, but it would have been clear even to those who didn’t know him that he had absolutely no idea what to do with it.

Jesper wanted, desperately, to go for his second pistol, to finish this before things got ugly. But  the man and Wylan were too close and his body was too off-kilter. He couldn’t risk hitting the wrong person.

Instead, he settled for throwing himself forward and punching the redheaded man as hard as he could. 

Unfortunately, it wasn’t very hard. The man stumbled backwards, fumbling for only a moment, and then brought his blade up in a sharp arc that just barely missed Jesper’s throat. Jesper dodged the blow and threw himself forward again, aiming a kick at the man’s shins.

It was ironic, really, that this fight had arrived at this particular moment. Any other time, with any other person by his side, Jesper would have been thrilled. He’d been desperate for a fight, craving one, for weeks now. He  _ liked  _ fighting, liked the rush of adrenaline and the breathless fear that came with it. But fighting alongside Wylan wasn’t like fighting alongside Nina or Inej. He couldn’t rely on Wylan to defend even himself, much less help Jesper fight off the attackers-- and he couldn’t let Wylan get hurt.

But with every passing moment, it was becoming increasingly clear that this wasn’t a fight Jesper could win. His blows were weak and badly-placed, and his head was spinning too badly for him to even consider the pistol still at his hip. He’d lost track of Wylan, too, and the fear of a third assailant gripped him tightly. He was losing ground fast, and it all slipped out from beneath him when the redhead man swept his booted foot across Jesper’s legs, knocking him to the ground. Jesper went down hard, his head colliding with stone for the second time. He had half a second to draw a breath, and then the man collided with him once again.

This time, he didn’t both with the knife. Instead, he locked his hands around Jesper’s throat and squeezed.

The world turned white. Jesper lashed out, desperate for contact, desperate for air, but his blows did nothing. His lungs screamed, the need to breathe clawing and desperate inside him, and then something silver flashed across his vision and the man’s hands went slack. Jesper shoved them aside and inhaled, his throat rattling as he gasped for air. Slowly, the pounding of his heart slowed, and he was able to open his eyes.

It took him a moment to make sense of all the blood oozing across his skin and the body slumped over him. Gagging, he shoved the body aside and sat up. The attacker’s throat had been cut and for a single moment his mind flashed to Inej, but no, it couldn’t have been, so who--

His eyes landed on Wylan, hunched over a few feet from the body. Retching. Trembling.

Jesper’s eyes snapped to the bloody knife lying a few feet away, and he understood.

It took him a few moments to gather himself enough that he could crawl over to Wylan’s side, a few moments in which the guilt and rage and panic threatened to overwhelm him. Wylan was shaking, his body and mind united in panic. Jesper recognized this, the heart-stopping terror, the dread that threatened to overwhelm everything a person was. It had been a long, long time, but he still remembered how it felt.

A distant memory sparked in his mind. He could hear Wylan’s voice, back in the Ice Court:  _ “I’d never even seen a dead body before I came to the Dregs.” _

Jesper wrapped an arm around Wylan and pulled him close, pressing down on the back of his head in a silent signal, and Wylan seemed to understand the invitation. He pressed his face into Jesper’s shoulder, and all the carefully drawn lines between them disappeared. Jesper did not think, did not wonder, did not ask himself if there was any point to any of this. He simply tightened his grip and allowed Wylan to lean into him.

But the moment couldn’t last. Surprisingly, it was Wylan who pulled back first, less shaky but just as pale.

“We should…”

“We should go,” said Jesper, finishing the sentence for him. His head was still ringing, but he got to his feet and pulled Wylan up with him, bending only to retrieve his pistol from where it lay on the ground. He didn’t touch the bloody knife and caught Wylan’s cheek when he tried to look at the bodies.

“Don’t,” he said. “It just makes it worse.” 

Wylan nodded and lowered his gaze to the ground. The sleeves of his coat were stained with blood, and the sight of his empty gaze made Jesper feel a thousand times more powerless than he had for weeks.

 

xxx

 

“Jesper!” Nina’s voice rang out loud and clear, and for a moment it was easy to imagine the Nina of old, bright cheeked and full of energy. Jesper came to a stop in front of the doorway, Wylan at his side. The sight was serene: Nina curled up on her bed, wavy hair falling over her shoulders, with Matthias seated in a nearby chair, their fingers tangled together. Then Nina caught sight of the bloodstains and leapt to her feet, crossing the room and gripping Jesper by the shoulders.

“What happened to you two?” she said, her gaze flickering between them. “Are you hurt? I can--”

“No, Nina,” said Matthias, crossing over to them. “You’re not strong enough.” Despite the sternness of his tone and the mistrusting way he still regarded all of them, Jesper could see the worry on his face.

Nina opened her mouth to argue, but Jesper shook his head, cutting her off.

“It’s fine, Nina,” he said. “Close call, but we made it out all right.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the package of medicine. “For your headaches. I think it might have been what they were after-- they probably sell it and then steal it back again.” It was the sort of thing Kaz would come up with, he thought.

Nina accepted the medicine, but her mouth was still pulled into a tight, worried line. Her eyes drifted over to Wylan, who was still gazing at the floor, and then glanced back over to Jesper, a question evident.

_ Later,  _ Jesper mouthed. Out loud, he said “You should get back to bed.” She did look pale and drawn, what little energy she’d managed at the sight of them fading quickly. Nina nodded, seeming to understand that his words were more about Wylan than her. She touched Wylan gently on the shoulder and then retreated into her room once again, Matthias at her side.

“Come on,” said Jesper. He took Wylan by the sleeve of his coat and led him down the hallway. Wylan’s room was another floor up, but Jesper’s was larger, and there was no way in hell he was leaving Wylan alone after what had just happened. 

Wylan stayed silent as Jesper pulled him through the door and sat him down on the edge of the bed, and so Jesper, too, stayed quiet as he discarded his guns, pulled off his coat, and carefully examined the bruises on his forehead in the mirror. Once he was certain he was no longer bleeding, he dipped a strip of cloth in the basin of water he kept by his window and crouched down in front of Wylan, running the wet fabric over his bloodstained fingers. Jesper thought of Wylan running his hands through his hair as he struggled to piece together words, Wylan crouched on the ground carefully constructing one of his explosives, Wylan’s stupid flute, and his stomach twisted at the sight of those hands smeared with red. 

When the last traces of gore had been wiped away, Jesper set the strip of cloth aside but stayed where he was, crouched on the dusty floor, his calloused fingers and Wylan’s softer ones tangled together. He studied them as he tried to find the right words for what he wanted to say.

“Inej cried for hours,” he said eventually. He still remembered the grim set of Kaz’s mouth that day, Inej’s painful-looking eyes. He wished, abruptly and fiercely, that Inej was here now. She hadn’t known Wylan well, but Jesper knew, somehow, that had she been here, she would have sat with Wylan and watched over his grief, serene and powerful as one of her Suli saints. 

“I got as drunk as it’s physically possible to be,” he went on. “And Kaz-- well, who knows what he did. But the point is…” He didn’t know what the point was. He only knew that he wanted the numb expression on Wylan’s face to go away and the only way he knew to do that was by talking. 

Wylan looked down at their tangled fingers, then up at Jesper’s face, his expression unreadable.

“Sorry,” he said, after a moment or two.

Jesper blinked. “When in the name of the Saints are you apologizing for? Wylan. You saved my life.”

“I killed someone,” said Wylan, shaking his head. “Jesper, I  _ killed someone.  _ And I know-- that maybe it doesn’t matter to the rest of you, but--”

“Wylan,” said Jesper. “For fuck’s sake. I grew up on a farm, okay? When I first came to Ketterdam I knew more about radishes than I did about killing people. None of us  _ started out _ as messed-up, debt-ridden criminals.”

“But--”

“And more importantly,” said Jesper, tightening his grip on Wylan’s hands for emphasis, “no one  _ wants  _ you to be that way, either. You’re ridiculously naive and absurdly innocent and we all  _ like  _ you that way.  _ I  _ like you that way.”

“I just committed murder and you’re calling me innocent?”

“It was self-defense.”

“I killed someone, Jesper!” Wylan said again,  his voice rising. “He’s dead!”

“Yeah,” said Jesper, looking him in the eyes. “You did. And now you’re freaked out and messed up and you’re probably going to have nightmares, maybe for months, and that’s why you’re sitting on my bed instead of freezing to death in your pathetic excuse for a bedroom. I’m not expecting you to be fine with all this-- I’d actually be kind of worried if you were.”

Wylan blinked at him. Jesper felt faintly embarrassed, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. He stood up, letting Wylan’s hands drop away from his, and moved away. He was itching to reach for his gun, but he thought that might be a grim reminder of earlier events, so he settled for running his fingers across his shelves, drumming on the wood.

“Do you ever miss it?” Wylan said, after a long, empty pause. 

Jesper put his finger-drumming on hold, but didn’t turn around. “Miss what?”

“The farm,” said Wylan. “Where you grew up. With the radishes.”

“Nah,” said Jesper. His voice was light, but the words sent a stab of guilt and remorse through him. He hesitated, fingers tapping faster and faster, and then spoke again.  _ This is Wylan,  _ he reminded himself.  _ Not Kaz. You can be honest. You owe him that much. _

“Not the farm, really,” he said. “But... my dad. And the animals, I guess. We had a lot of cats, for the mice.”

“I’ve never heard you talk about him before. Your father.”

Jesper turned around and moved towards Wylan, taking a seat next to him on the edge of the bed. He stretched his long legs out in front of him and stared at his feet, turning the words over in his mind.

“I don’t think about him much,” he admitted. “I try not to.”

“Well,” said Wylan. “I guess we’ve got that in common.”

Jesper laughed, then immediately stopped, as the movement made his head pound. 

“Hey,” said Wylan, reaching up to carefully press a finger against one of the bruises. “How bad are these?”

Jesper shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

Wylan rolled his eyes. “Why is that the only thing any of you are capable of saying when you get hurt?” 

“Because we’re all very tough,” said Jesper, “especially me.” Wylan let his hand fall, but Jesper caught his wrist and cradled his hand carefully, trailing his fingers across the palm and up the wrist. “Feel free to be very worried about me, though.” He looked up and was rewarded by the sight of Wylan’s telltale blush. 

As rewarding as the sight was, however, he couldn’t deny that he was still more than a little dizzy. He released Wylan’s hand and moved backwards, stretching out on the bed and closing his eyes.

A moment later, he heard Wylan’s shoes hit the floor as he took them off, and then the bed creaked and bent as Wylan lay down next to him.

He cracked an eye open and then closed it again, reminding himself to breathe steadily with Wylan’s face so close to his own. “Near-death experiences have made you very bold, merchling.”

“I can leave,” said Wylan, and Jesper could hear the note of uncertainty in his voice. 

Instead of answering, he moved closer. When he opened his eyes, they were practically nose-to-nose. Wylan’s sharp inhale should have been immensely satisfying, but instead it sent shivers down Jesper’s spine.

“I was being serious about your head,” said Wylan. “You got with a gun.  _ Your  _ gun.”

“Don’t say that. It’s way too embarrassing.”

“Maybe your pride is just too easily damaged.”

“Rude,” said Jesper. “This is supposed to be about me comforting you, not you verbally attacking me.”

“This is you comforting me?” 

“Don’t you feel comforted?”

Wylan nudged Jesper’s knee with his own. Outside, the sun was sinking, casting long shadows and golden spots of light around the room: Wylan’s red-gold hair glowed like a halo, and Jesper felt a strange rush, calmer than fear and better than adrenaline. 

“That’s not the underlying feeling I’m getting here, no,” said Wylan, tilting his head just a little bit closer. He was trembling, and with his body pressed against Jesper’s in the way it was, Jesper could feel that nervousness the way he could feel his own pounding heartbeat.

“So what  _ is  _ the underlying feeling?” said Jesper-- though  _ said  _ wasn’t the right word for this. They were close, so close, their mouths just a breath apart, that he was barely speaking at all. 

Wylan seemed to be on the verge of saying something, though he didn’t seem to be entirely certain what that something was, but Jesper’s whole body was humming and all of the talking suddenly seemed incredibly unnecessary.

He moved forward just a fraction of an inch, and then they were kissing.

It was, Jesper would think much later, the slowest and softest kiss he’d ever experienced. Jesper had kissed people before, girls with brightly painted lips and boys with smiles like daggers, in alleyways and crowded bars and bedrooms, and yet he had never once kissed anyone quite like this. There was no bite to it, no liquor-flavored burn, no sharp reminders that they were both trying to forget someone else.

He wasn’t trying to forget someone else. He was only trying to remember this, all this: Wylan’s muffled gasp, his shaky hand cupping Jesper’s chin, Jesper’s fingers twisting through a handful of his messy curls. 

When they had to part to breathe, Wylan was still trembling. Jesper let his head fall onto the pillow and wrapped his arm around Wylan’s back, pulling him closer.

Wylan’s eyes opened, and Jesper could see both his natural blue and the gold Nina had added.

“You know,” said Jesper, because he needed to say something or else he was going to spend the rest of his life staring at Wylan van Eck’s golden eyelashes, “this was probably the worst moment for that, what with the shock and possible emotional numbness. Am I taking advantage here or something?”

Wylan shook his head.

“You sure?”

“I’m pretty sure the shock didn’t change anything,” said Wylan, pink-cheeked and nervous and utterly endearing, “mostly because I’ve wanted to do that for… a long time.”

“I have so many questions about that statement,” said Jesper, grinning up at him. “How long is a long time, and what, exactly, have you wanted to do to me for the duration of that period of time?”

Wylan shook his head, blush deepening. “Not answering that.”

“You could just  _ show  _ me,” said Jesper. “That’s always an option.”

“Now you are taking advantage,” said Wylan, letting his head fall onto the pillow. “It’s not like I know what I’m doing. At all.”

“Luckily,” said Jesper, “you don’t have to. I’m very good at providing examples.”

“I’m sure.”

But in the end, that wasn’t how the rest of the night went. Instead, they stayed where they were, Jesper’s arm looped around Wylan’s body, legs twisted together, faces inches apart. They stayed that way as the room grew completely dark, as Jesper told Wylan about growing radishes on a farm, as Wylan muffled his laughter against Jesper’s shoulder. 

When they did kiss again, it was slow and clumsy, both of them already half-asleep. And when Wylan woke hours later, gasping for breath and clutching at the sheets with desperate fingers, wrenched from sleep by bloodstained nightmares, Jesper held him carefully until he stopped trembling.

Maybe the streets of Ketterdam hadn’t changed, but other things certainly had. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come join me @iwillhaveyouwithoutarmor on Tumblr if you want to cry over these nerds with me.
> 
> Reviews fill my heart with joy!


End file.
